


at least it's almost christmas

by craftingdead



Series: charlie will make cd a common tag if it kills them [28]
Category: The Crafting Dead
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 12:06:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19109317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/craftingdead/pseuds/craftingdead
Summary: (“Is there anything we can do to help him?”)





	at least it's almost christmas

**Author's Note:**

> thanks xin i fucking hate the redstoner au

Ghetto pushes himself up, stretching his arms out in a wide arc and yawning loudly. Gray had asked him to go on an early morning “supply run,” which meant that he would be away for hours, not looking for supplies, but instead making sure Shark didn’t run off the bridge to Atlanta (which he almost does every single time they cross it).

A hand snakes out and grabs him by the arm, stopping him from getting up all the way. When Ghetto looks behind him, Nick is looking up sleepily, eyes lidded and heavy, face half-buried in a pillow. “Where are you going?” he mumbles, still out of it, more than likely half-asleep and not understanding a word of what he’s about to say.

“I’m just going on a run,” Ghetto replies soothingly, “I’ll be back soon enough.”

“Don’t go,” Nick grumbles, but his grip loosens on his arm and Ghetto is able to stand up. Even though he could do it whether or not Nick let go. He was pretty strong, but he wouldn’t dare try anything to accidentally hurt him.

“It’s you versus Gray, babe.” Nick snorts, head lifting ever so slightly from the pillow. “Either I go, or you can try and argue with him.

Nick sticks out his tongue in annoyance and Ghetto snickers, turning to face him. “Alright. If you’re that clingy I’ll go and try to convince Gray to let me skip and let, I don’t know, Shelby take my place. Alright?”

Ghetto’s not even finished with his sentence before Nick’s head is in the air, eyes sparkling. “Really? Hell yeah?” he says, voice still ridden with sleep. Ghetto nods, and Nick lays his head back down, smiling warmly at him. He’ll be asleep again by the time Ghetto gets back—he’s probably falling back into it right now—but if it gives him a chance to curl up next to Nick for longer, stay just a bit longer, it’ll be worth it.

“Thanks,” he mumbles and sighs as Ghetto turns.

He’s halfway to the door before he remembers something, and Ghetto turns, opening his mouth to talk. “Hey, I just remembered—” but Nick isn’t there anymore.

Dread pools in his stomach. “Nick?”

Ghetto wakes up.

Light filters through his window, a faint summer's breeze flowing through. The curtains sway, newly installed—Jess, sheepishly, said she thought he might enjoy them if the sun gets too annoying. Waking you up, and all, she says. He thought he was talking out of her ass. The old him might’ve. The newer him realizes how annoying the sun really is. It always seems to wake him up right as his dreams start to feel real. Curtains and all.

He drags his ass from the bed, the blankets that stay on him and his side and only his side the entirety of the night being kicked off, messing up his (previously and against his will) always-made bed even more than it had been before. Ghetto hasn’t bothered to make his bed again and again. It does nothing, it just wastes time.

Ghetto’s sluggish, his room hot as fuck, his shirts, previously worn and used, strewn across the floor and kicked into a corner, since he didn’t bother to gather them all up and store them like he used to. It’s too hot to do that now. That’s his excuse for what seems like everything.

He knows that he probably should go out and get something to eat, but he’s feeling tired again. Sighing, he throws himself back in bed. Ghetto only got three steps away from it today, but that’s better than yesterday, when AK tried to drag him from his bed and only got one leg off of it before he gave up and stormed out, mumbling something about how he was “useless” and how he was gonna “get Gray.” He never did.

Everyone else knew better than to try and bother him nowadays. Eight days, seven hours, thirty minutes and fifty-six minutes.

* * *

(Shelby stumbles into the room as Ghetto is pouring himself some cereal. He’s finally given into the hunger that’s been gnawing at his stomach all day, even if it means having to see the pitying and sympathetic looks from the others at the CDC.

She looks tired, bedhead and messy like she’s just woken up. She limps over to a table and slumps down, near collapsing onto it and resting her cheek against the surface. Ghetto isn’t the only one who’s been grieving, and a sharp pang in his chest makes him stop pouring and makes him look up at her, truly. She raises her head to meet his gaze.

“You should’ve had a family,” she croaks and goes back to laying her head down.

A few minutes later Jess finds her and coaxes her back to her room, promising a warm drink and a warmer bed. By then, Ghetto is gone, but her words ring in his ear as he tries to distract himself with anything other than her words.)

* * *

Gray tries a few days later to get him out of his room.

“Sulking around won’t help anyone,” he says, crosses his room and throws open the curtains, letting sunshine flow into the room. Ghetto winces and pulls the covers over his head, grumbling angrily and glaring daggers at him.

“Well, it won’t.”

“Fuck you,” Ghetto says, and wraps himself tighter. Gray waits for five minutes, foot tapping impatiently against the floor, before he sighs, shuts the curtains and mutters to get some dinner, and goes to leave the room.

* * *

(“Is there anything we can do to help him?” Ghetto stops cold as he hears Gray’s hushed voice, speaking in a low whisper to someone. Ghetto silently slips back and presses himself against the wall, not bothering to walk in and disturb them or their conversation.

“Sadly, not yet,” Xavier’s voice replies, “I’m a doctor and a scientist—a damn good one, at that. But not even I know how to cure this kind of grief. The best we can do for him is making sure he stays healthy as possible while recovering. Convincing him to eat, let his leg heal. I wish I could ask him which part hurts and make everything better, but that’s harder than it seems.”

Gray sighs. “I just wish we could bring… bring him back. He didn’t get to say goodbye. None of us got to say goodbye.”

“I miss him too.” Xavier says something else after that, but Ghetto doesn’t hear it, instead slipping away and leaving with his stomach in his throat and bile burning back in it.)

* * *

 

Gray found some kids huddled outside of an old store, not even in the double digits, and brought them back. They kept trying to say how the group needed to find their mommy since she was hurt, and ran so the walkers wouldn’t find them, and how brave she was to take care of them, and how much they missed her. Nobody in the group had any heart to tell the two of them what probably happened.

Currently, he was showing the two of them around the CDC, assigning names to faces and telling them about all the locations in the building and where to go if you need help.

“And this is where we eat and—oh, hey, Ghetto, uh,” Gray stumbles, obviously not expecting him to be there. Ghetto’s reading a book, not paying attention to it and letting the words swirl around the page. “And that’s Ghetto, he’s one of the best fighters here, but currently he’s recovering from some wounds he got in a… in a fight.”

The smaller of the two kids, a little girl, waves, and her sister says, “Why does he look so sad?”

“Don’t be so blunt!” her sister shrieks, punching in her arm, as the color starts to leak from Gray’s face as he looks between the kids and Ghetto. Ghetto’s pretending to ignore them, but every word hits like a punch to the face.

“It’s a question—I’m wondering—hey, Ghetto, sir! Sir-Ghetto! Why do you look so sad!” Her sister yells and he can hear the sound of scuffling before Gray sharply says, “That’s enough!” and leads the two of them off again. He’s trembling.

* * *

(Nick shares an amused look with Ghetto as Jordan points out all the street and road names, listing them off like his life depended on it, forgetting that the two of them had lived there since they were little kids. Ghetto rolls his eyes in response.

“And that’s—uh, I forgot what it’s called, but my friends used to say it was some kind of stupid leaf name or something. I honestly can’t remember. They used to make fun of it with some song they made up because a kid they hated lived on that street! Oh, and that’s—”

Ghetto rolls over and smiles in his sleep, just faintly, bathed in warmth and good memories of the past.)

* * *

It’s raining. Hard. For the first time in what seems like months.

Ghetto’s locked up in his room, using the rain as an excuse not to come out and do something with Shark or AK or anyone. September was here, with the heat finally giving way to a nice breeze every few days. Soon enough it’d be winter, and freezing, and food hard to find, and supplies hard to find, and everything cold and either dry and insufferable or damp and miserable.

“At least it’s almost Christmas,” Nick says, joking. Used to say, joking. Now, Ghetto just wishes the season would get done and over with.


End file.
